


you feel just like I remember...

by iska_stel



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: 90s AU, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Angst, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of side characters, M/M, Post-Graduation, bisexual!Johanna, lots of side romances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:34:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26690722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iska_stel/pseuds/iska_stel
Summary: Katniss thought her last days at Camp Panem were long behind her. She also thought the last time she saw Peeta Mellark was long behind her.It's going to be a long summer.[ In honour of the summer we've all lost to Miss Rona; inspired by Kesha's "Summer", Wet Hot American Summer in all its forms, and the nightmare hell of childcare ]
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 35





	1. time just blows

“You’re _really_ not coming?”

I sigh, tucking a wispy lock of hair behind Johanna’s ear. She’d shaved it all off in fall semester when she took Women’s Studies 100 to meet her elective requirement, and now that it was finally growing in again she was never quite sure how to keep it tamed. Not that Johanna was ever much concerned with keeping tame.

“I’m _really not_ , Jo.”

“You know, a party might be just what you need to take your mind off things,” she says in a lilting voice, squeezing my shoulders.

“Answer’s still no.”

“But who’s going to protect me from a nip-slip relapse? I’ve been clean since junior year!”

“Yeah, that’s the opposite of persuasive. Tell me again how you managed to graduate?”

She pouts and crosses her arms, almost knocking her boobs out of her own shirt. I warned her about the deep-v, but if there’s one consistent thing about Johanna it’s that she will make her own choices regardless of your input.

“Go have fun,” I say, giving her a little push towards the door. “You only get one college grad party, right?”

“ _Exactly_. Which is why you should come with me!”

“You know I’m not coming. I’m waiting to hear from Gale, remember?”

She lets out a big sigh, and then wraps her arms around me, resting her chin on my shoulder. “I know. But hey —” she pulls away, grabs me by the shoulders and gives me a little squeeze “— it’s _one_ job, Katniss. You’ll find something else.”

“Yeah.” I try to say it brightly, try to smile, try to fight the knot in my throat. “I just… I really wanted that one.”

“I know.” She pulls me in for another hug, plants a kiss on my cheek, and then rubs it in a not-so-subtle attempt to wipe her lipstick off my face. “Just don’t eat all the ice cream, okay? I am not making another shitfaced 7-Eleven run.” She points a warning finger at me, blows me one last kiss, and then she’s out the door.

I watch her from the window for a little bit, teetering in her high heels and adjusting her denim miniskirt before she gets into the car waiting at the curb.

It’s not realistic to expect a job right out of university, I know that. But Seamtec Ltd. was where my dad worked, and Gale got a job offer there the week before graduation, and is it so wrong to hope for something familiar when everything stable I’d come to know is slipping from my grasp?

Prim’s locked into an internship all summer before she heads to university. Mom’s nearly settled a closing deal on the family house. Everyone else I know is travelling or interning or fielding job offers or getting into masters’ programs, and here I am, unable to acquire a legacy job with top grades in my class.

“It’s bullshit,” Gale said over the phone, operating as usual on the assumption that if he kept being angry enough for long enough I’d quit blubbering to him. My cousin has never been one for handling emotions, but he’s weathered them by my side for this long.

Except he’s not by my side anymore. He’s two years post-grad, already climbing in an industry we planned to join together, while I can’t find a single job in my field.

“You’ll find something else,” he insisted. “And I’ll put in a good word for you, too.”

“You shouldn’t _have_ to,” I said, sniffling, while he sighed on the other end.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

He’d promised to call later on in the week, hopefully with good news, and then he left me to eat a half-pint of ice cream and weep over the latest regurgitation of _A Star Is Born_. When Johanna came home after one of the many big parties of finals week to find me in this state, she was furious.

“I mean come on, Katniss! I have a perfectly good copy of _Rocky Horror_ sitting right there, and you choose to watch this garbage?”

“But I’m sad,” I wailed, and between the rarity of me actually sharing my emotions and the enticing offer to share my half-eaten tub, she traded her miniskirt for a pair of sweats, finished the movie with me, and even let me put _Grease_ on after.

“What if I never get my life together?” I whispered, swaddled in a blanket despite Johanna’s protests that it was _summer_ and blankets should be _abolished_.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said with a scoff, though she looped an arm around my shoulder and stroked my hair the way my mother used to. “You’re the smartest person I know, and more importantly, you’re tough as nails. This is just a roadblock, okay?”

“And we know how to get past those,” I sighed, repeating Johanna’s lifelong mantra.

“That’s right.”

Between my dad’s death and all the fallout that came with it, and Johanna’s years of torture at the hands of the foster system, we’d had our fair share of roadblocks. As opposite as we were in personality and taste, that was always the thing we had in common. That’s a bond far greater than movie genre or ice cream flavour.

But even bonds like ours can be briefly interrupted for the sake of a good party, so for this round of weepy, ice cream-indulgent movie-going, I am alone.

Until, of course, the phone rings.

I lunge for the landline so quickly I nearly trip over the rug, and I’m out of breath by the time I’ve picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” I gasp, already running over my rehearsed sales pitch in my head. Graduated my engineering degree with top marks, industry connections and relevant networkers —

“Katniss?” the voice seems to echo on the other end of the line, and maybe it’s just me hearing it from the distant place I’ve gone in the back of my mind, because it’s not Plutarch from Seamtec calling to set up an interview, it’s Haymitch.

There’s a dry cough from the receiver, and then an impatient, “Hello?” 

“Hi. Yeah. It’s Katniss,” I say slowly, trying to fathom why he would be calling me of all people, here of all places, now of all times. “What’s up?”

There’s a pause on his end, and I can feel the weight of it through the phone line even before he drops the question. “You got any plans this summer?”

“Why are you doing this?”

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Gale so exasperated, and the echo of the speakerphone only makes it more blatant. He can’t know from the other line, but I’m packing my duffel bag with enough fervour to rebel against the disapproval already creeping into his tone.

“It’s not like I have any other prospects, Gale,” I snap, my hopes to not sound too bitter immediately dashed. “And anyway, he said I’d get the full camp director’s wage.”

“You’d make more here,” he fires back, bull-headed as ever.

“I’d be happy to, _if I had a job there_.” His sigh is crackly over the phone, even more obnoxious than it would have been face-to-face. “I mean seriously, what am I supposed to do? Spend a summer as a McKitchen Wench, waiting for a phone call I might never get?”

“At least it would be something you could drop if you needed to. _When_ you get your phone call.”

As if I couldn’t drop a dinky little summer camp if a better opportunity arose. And the nerve of him to actually suggest I spend my first post-grad summer slinging burgers for minimum wage!

“It’s great that you’re so sure of this whole thing, but I can’t afford to think like that.”

He sighs again, but this one is gentle. Less exasperated, more defeated. At least he can tell when I’m beyond the point of persuasion. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m worried about you being stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

“It’s _Camp Panem_ , Gale,” I say, bursting out in laughter. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

As it turns out, the worst that could happen occurrs before I even arrive, when Johanna decides she’ll tag along with me.

“No way. You’re not coming,” I tell her, yanking her overloaded backpack away from her and moving to dump its contents on her bed.

“Uh, says who?” She yanks it back and swats my hands away, and as much as I’m already seething I know we’re too evenly matched for a fistfight to end in my favour.

“Says the camp director, bitch.”

“Well, Miss Camp Director, I suggest you talk to your hiring team, because they already gave me the job. I am officially a Camp Panem Counsellor so _eat my dick_ , bitch _._ ”

“No, no, no, no, no. No!” My heart is racing, my head spinning. It’s one thing to careen back into childhood nostalgia for a summer, but to have Johanna tag along? I love that girl to death, but this scenario is my hell. “Don’t you have another summer job lined up? Park ranger or something?”

She waves a flippant hand and scoffs at me. “Please, I could spend every summer for the rest of my life as a park ranger. But working at a camp for underprivileged kids, where I don’t have to pick up beer cans from summer parties I don’t get to attend? That’s a once in a lifetime gig for me, baby.”

“You’ve never been interested in anything like this.”

“You’ve never brought it up! Which is surprising, considering you spent every summer there from the age of eleven to seventeen…”

Hit by a fresh wave of anger, I smack her backpack out of her hand, but the heavy _thunk_ does nothing to satisfy me. “Who were you talking to? Did Gale rat on me?”

She says nothing, only raises her brows at me. _You should know better_ , that look says, and it hits me at once.

I bring my hand to my forehead, let out a groan, and then, through gritted teeth, growl, “ _Effie_.”

“She’s quite the talker, that one.” Johanna smirks, picking at her nails. “I can’t wait to meet her in person. I’m sure she’ll have loads of stories for me.”

“You’re a bitch.”

“That’s right,” she says sweetly, patting my cheek with all the condescension in the world. “And once you’ve got yourself a bitch, you damn well can’t switch.”

“Fuck you.”

Despite living together for the entirety of our university experience, this is the first road trip we’ve ever been on together. It’s not much different from rooming, to be honest, although her mixes were better and she leaves more trash on my floor.

And just like rooming with Johanna, the worst of it is all the badgering.

“So who’s like, the hottest at camp?” she asks, feet propped on the dashboard. I’d given up pushing her off hours ago.

“Um, I don’t know.” I shoot her a perturbed glance. “What are you looking for?”

She let out a gusty sigh. “In all honesty, I’m getting really tired of dick. But here’s the thing: I know _university_ dick, but I don’t know _camp_ dick. What if there’s a crucial, mind-blowing difference and I miss out, because I’m too occupied trying to bag a girl who looks almost as good as me in a bikini?”

“It’s quite the dilemma,” I deadpan, though she doesn’t seem to notice.

“Okay, how about you start with the girls first, and then I get an idea for potential competition too. Then bring me the men.”

I try to ignore the menacing way she rubs her hands together. “I don’t actually know everyone who’s gonna be a counsellor this summer — you know that, right?”

“And why not, Miss Camp Director?”

“Because this summer’s been a toss-up for months?” I shoot her a hard look, wondering how she’s gotten this far without realizing how tough the place has had it. “I mean, Haymitch barely made it through last year, Effie’s working remotely, their budget got slashed _again_ , and half the people who initially signed on got better gigs elsewhere.”

_The exact opposite of my situation_ , I want to say, but my bitterness will only bring on another round of chastising. 

“I guess we’ll find out when we get there then, huh?”

“I guess so.” I watch her flip down her visor to look in the mirror, frowning and picking at a clump of mascara on her lashes. She’s disappointed, and disappointed Johanna is even worse than devious Johanna. So I reach over, squeeze her knee, and say, “Doesn’t matter who else is coming when the hottest girl from Capitol University going to be there, right?”

Her lips twitch in a smile, eyes narrowing in that signature all-confident, all-knowing smirk, and she flips her visor back up with a hearty _thwack_.

“That’s right.”

A cloud of dust overtakes the car before we’ve even parked on the dirt-and-gravel strip, but Effie’s silhouette is visible before the dust settles. Visible and on the move. Urgently. In our direction.

“Get ready,” I say under my breath, and then paint the biggest smile I can maintain without twitching every five seconds. I swing open my door and step out before she can yank me out of my car herself. “Hi, Effie.”

“Welcome, welcome, welcome!” Her hands are flying around with unbridled delight, and I inch backwards to avoid a smack upside the head. That is not how I want my summer to start.

But then she pulls me in for one of her signature cheek-kisses, and I’m not sure it matters anymore what I want for my summer.

“It’s so good to see you again, Katniss!” She clutches my hands in hers, grinning ear to ear. “You know, there are an awful lot of familiar faces this year, but yours is the one I’m most excited to see.” She gives my cheek a little pat, which reminds me of Johanna, which makes me realize Effie has not yet pounced on her.

“Oh, did you meet —”

“And you must be Johanna!” She very nearly shrieks the words, and Johanna flinches when Effie toddles over for a big hug. It took us years to convince her that heels would do her no good at a childrens’ summer camp, and after enough nagging she’d compromised with platform sandals that, while still not entirely sensible, were good enough to avoid broken ankles. The compromise has stuck, apparently.

“That’s me,” Johanna says weakly, mustering all her willpower to deliver a few cordial pats to Effie’s shoulder.

“Oh, you girls are going to have so much fun this summer! Now, I’d offer to give you the tour myself, but Katniss here knows this place better than anyone, and I still have some things to sort in the office.” She huffs a breath, flicking some of her strawberry-blonde curls out of her eyes, and then fixes her dazzling smile on once more. “There’s a schedule to stick to!”

“Sounds good, Effie. Where are we bunking? I’d like to get our bags put away.”

She waves an indignant hand. “Oh, don’t bother. I’ll get the boys to handle that for you.”

Johanna seems to perk up at the mention of the opposite sex, so I butt in again before she has a chance to further inquire.

“Well, since _that’s sorted_ ,” I say firmly, grabbing Jo by the wrist and staring her down, “where would you like to start?”

“If I may —” Effie pokes a finger out, and we both turn back to her. “I’d recommend the kitchen as your first stop. I have it on good authority that there are a few people there who’d like to say hello.”

“Mags and Sae? They’re back?” My heart’s already thumping, and I can feel that lightness start to take hold in my chest. That’s summer camp, that feeling, right there.

But Effie doesn’t answer, only winks, and normally her attempts at mystery would annoy me but I’m too excited by the thought of seeing my surrogate grandmothers that I ignore it.

“To the kitchen!” I tug on Johanna’s wrist and take off in a run to the mess hall, and whatever complaints she makes don’t quite reach my ears.

“Hello?” I call into the empty room, my voice bouncing off the walls. There’s light flooding through the kitchen doorway, and I can hear them banging around in there. I couldn’t have fought my grin if I wanted to. “A little bird told me that someone was here to see me?”

I poke my head through the kitchen door with the glee of a child about to win a championship round of hide-and-go-seek, but they’re not here. No grey hair or bony wrists or warm, wrinkled faces.

There’s only a broad-shouldered man with sandy hair and the sharpest blue eyes I’ve ever known and a sack of flour slung over his shoulder and a look of surprise that I’m sure nowhere near matches mine.

“Hi, Katniss,” he says, and my heart is thumping harder than the excitement of seeing an old friend or a minute-long sprint, and I can’t imagine getting anything out, let alone having an actual conversation with him, so the only word I manage to choke out is the one bouncing around my head that I thought I’d chased out so long ago but turns out to be a champion of hide-and-go-seek after so many years.

“Peeta.”


	2. how about we rewind, slow-mo

For as long as I could remember, I’d worked very hard to hate Peeta Mellark.

The Mellarks were a staple of our sleepy little town, just as quintessential to the suburbs as their bakery was to the old quarter. For a long time they were known for their tarts and pastries and cookies, then for top-of-the-line coffee brewed with local beans, and then for their uncanny ability to keep the corporate cafe chains at bay. But the sweetest thing that family was known for was Peeta.

He was quiet from day one, maybe even a little shy. But always kind, always friendly. If you spoke to him, he looked at you like you were the only person in the world. He was popular, funny, athletic. His family had money, he was well-dressed, and there was something about his quiet thoughtfulness, his air of humility that only sharpened his bone structure and deepened the blue in his eyes.

Everybody loved him, and I resented him for it. Not that I wanted anything like that. It just bothered me to watch the entire world shine upon him and know full well that he’d never once in his life have to work for it.

My family had always struggled, even before Dad died. We were never _broke_ , per se, but we didn’t shop brand names. The only restaurant we ate at was McDonald’s. Our clothes came from Wal-Mart or Goodwill, our dinners were Hamburger Helper or Kraft, and our summer vacations were cramped tents at discount campsites. But somehow Dad always managed to find some secret trail, a secluded stretch of lakeside that no one else could get to.

When we lost him, we lost Mom for a little bit too. The life insurance kept us afloat, and the Hawthornes helped in all the little ways they could. Hazelle drove me to the grocery store, taught me to shop the flyers, coaxed Mom out for a mug of tea every now and then. Every night I made sure Prim had dinner and did her homework and got a bedtime story. Between the two of us, the Everdeen household survived.

By the time Mom resurfaced, I’d adapted to that way of life. That survival-mode. On my thirteenth birthday I got a job stocking shelves at the budget store, and I’d never gone a day unemployed since. While other girls my age spent their parents’ money on makeup and clothes and candy runs, I funnelled every cent of my hard-earned paychecks into an account for the next time I didn’t have parents to take care of me.

There never was a next time in my childhood, but I also never had to take out a loan for school.

It was hard though, to look at my peers and not feel bitter. All my classmates were in sports or music lessons, having sleepovers and first kisses and weekend trips to the lake. Meanwhile I was at home, cooking dinner and paying bills from Mom’s credit card. And I knew even at that age that every family had their problems — I didn’t know any kids who had to cook their own dinners, but I knew some whose parents were a little too comfortable with an open hand, or emptied their beer-fridges a little too quickly, or put a little too much pressure on their star athletes to-be.

There was never a blip in the Mellark family, though. Not a sign of the slightest struggle, not a single bad word to be said of any of them. If I could have had just a taste of the luck that family seemed to carry in their DNA, my world would be entirely different, but I was too pessimistic for wishful thinking and completely incapable of channelling that frustration in any constructive way, so I took a different approach. If I had to have his stupid pretty face shoved under my nose every five seconds, I could get something out of it. So every ounce of bitterness, of resentment, of angry wistfulness I held for every shitty card I’d been dealt along the way — I balled it all up and stuck it onto him.

I was never outright nasty, but I did everything in my power to completely avoid his existence. In every class I shared with him, from elementary straight through to high school, I took a seat as far from him as possible. I took note of everyone he was friends with and made sure to keep away from them too. I refused to walk the same block as his family bakery, let alone go inside. I burnt any bridge that had the potential to connect me to him.

And it was easy at first, to dump all of my problems onto someone who had none. Easy to hate the perfect pretty-boy who lived on the right side of the tracks and held the love of the entire town in the palm of his hand and got everything he ever wanted.

It got a lot harder when Mr. Mellark had a heart attack.

The mourning was a town-wide activity. Everybody wanted to pay respects to the local baker, the kind father, the friendliest man with the friendliest family. The loss was universal, the grief just as much so, but I hadn’t known Mr. Mellark at all. Certainly not enough to feel like I’d lost him. The only thing I’d lost was my scapegoat.

The day of his funeral, they shut down all the schools, closed businesses early. Since it was possible for everyone to attend, the expectation was that everyone did attend. Even if they were born on the wrong side of the tracks.

I didn’t want to go, didn’t want to embarrass myself in the one black dress I owned, itchy and pilled with a collar that made me look bony and flat-chested. But for anyone to not go would be an act of outright malice, and no matter how much resentment I’d piled on Peeta from a distance, I knew in my gut I couldn’t do something like that.

But even if I could have, Mom would have forced me to go anyway.

The ceremony was brief and unbearable, and by the time the reception rolled around I was dying to leave. There were too many people, too many tears, and all I could think of was how clearly me and my itchy dress did not belong there. It was claustrophobic, and just like a particularly awful day at school, I figured my best option was to hide in the washroom until I had a more concrete exit strategy.

I’d just squeezed past the last cluster of mourners into the hall when I ran chest-first into someone who’d been rushing to escape just as quickly as me, and the second I realized who it was, all my irritation dissipated.

“Hey,” Peeta said, so low I could barely hear him over the hum of all the chatter in the other room.

I was frozen, my feet stuck to the floor. We’d never spoken before — in fact, I’d made a point of never getting anywhere near conversation with him — and my throat was so dry I couldn’t have said anything even if I knew what to say. So I just nodded. I didn’t know if it was supposed to be a greeting or just the acknowledgement that he was there, but after a second I realized it was probably pretty socially unacceptable to _not_ engage the kid whose dad had just died.

Not that he was really a kid anymore, now that he was sixteen and broad-shouldered and a big-deal football player, the boyish prettiness of his elementary school days traded in for a hard jawline and a low, melodic voice.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” I finally croaked, quickly coughing to clear my throat. I didn’t want him to think I was getting weepy about it. Not that it wasn’t sad or anything. It just felt dramatic and unnecessary. I’d already seen two other girls try to cry on his shoulder about the whole thing, like if they grieved his dad dramatically enough they might get to pity-screw the star quarterback.

“I’m sorry about yours,” he said back, and at once it made me angry and even sadder for him.

“It’s fine.” It wasn’t fine. “It’s been a few years now.” Decades could go by and it still wouldn’t be fine.

“It’s still sad though, isn’t it?”

I realized then that this wasn’t small talk, no kind of funereal ‘we’re-bonded-over-death’ pleasantries. It was a genuine question, like he needed to know to prepare himself for what came next.

I nodded again. “Yeah. It is.” And there was something so broken in his eyes that I got this weird feeling in my gut, this need to _protect_ him from it. To prepare him for it, at least. “And it’s always going to be sad, but you do get used to it. Kind of.” Which wasn’t entirely true. You didn’t really get used to it, you just had to accept after a certain point that no amount of grief would change the facts, and understand that that’s probably the closest you could get to having peace with it.

“You get used things being this way now.” He was nodding slowly as he spoke, processing, but it still sounded almost like a question. Like he needed answers, someone to confirm that this was survivable.

“Yeah. You do.”

He was still nodding, and I wondered if he even realized he was. I remembered that, in the first while. You’d just do things without ever noticing, look down at your hands and realize you’d chewed your nails down to raw stubs, or find yourself halfway down the path you used to hike with Dad in the spring, except you didn’t remember even leaving the house and it doesn’t matter that it’s early March and perfect weather for a walk in the snowmelt because Dad would never walk that trail with you again.

“Thank you, Katniss,” he finally said, and he must have come out of his fog by then because the nodding had stopped. Now he was just watching me.

I didn’t think he even knew my name.

I shot him a wan smile of acknowledgement, and to my relief, he walked away after one more parting nod. Mom found me a short while later, and with Prim in tow we were finally on our way out.

I didn’t sleep well that night, interrupted by dreams of underground explosions and the feeling of the life squeezed right out of my thumping heart.

I’d so aggressively made a point of not paying attention to Peeta over the years that it was jarring when he wasn’t in school for a week. It was such a project, taking note of where he was and who he was talking to so I could avoid and ignore everyone involved, that it was like a gaping hole in my peripheral once he was gone. I felt stupid for expecting him to be right back to school a week after his father had died, but I felt even stupider for noticing his absence as much as I did.

By that Friday I’d adjusted. It was easier this way, I figured. You didn’t have to keep track of someone who wasn’t around, and it gave me more time to think about other things. Homework, and Prim, whether he was okay.

I couldn’t stop wondering if he was okay.

By the next Monday I was tense, irritable. I didn’t know how I was going to get through the rest of the week, let alone the last few months of the school year, and then Peeta walked into first period.

His wavy blonde hair, which he normally had gelled up, was sticking up in spots, like he’d styled it a day before and couldn’t stop running his hands through it with stress.

Or grief.

The skin under his eyes was streaked purple-grey, like bruises on their last limbs. He was taking it hard. Of course he was. Who wouldn’t be?

He smiled thinly, lifted his fingers in the tiniest wave to his friends before he went to his seat, but at the last second his eyes locked on me. We stared at each other for several long moments, until he sank into his chair and set his eyes on the front of the room, and Mr. Latier hobbled to the chalkboard for his lecture. I’d never spent a period staring so hard at the board while simultaneously paying so little attention to the contents of the lecture.

This was the game we played for the rest of the week. Every class we shared — and, god, _how did we share so many?_ — we’d exchange a few seconds of fiery eye contact when either one of us walked into the room, and pretend like nothing happened, like nothing was happening.

Which wasn’t any kind of pretending at all, actually, because nothing _was_ happening.

On Friday he caught me in the library, huddled in the corner with my biology textbook and the half-sandwich that made up my lunch.

“Katniss,” he said, quietly, like he’d happened upon a feral animal he was scared to startle.

I was startled regardless.

I stared up at him, brow furrowed, trying to figure out why he was there. I must have looked a little like a feral animal, because his cheeks started going red and at the last minute he plucked a book from the shelf and held it up like it was a white flag of surrender.

“Just, uh, browsing,” he said. I raised an eyebrow at the copy of _The Human Body and You_ in his hands. He glanced down and read the same title, and shoved it back onto the shelf, growing even redder in the process. “Madge said you usually have lunch in the library. You’re friends, right?”

_Not for much longer_ , I thought. The traitor, answering questions about me from _Peeta Mellark_ of _all people_.

Why the hell was _Peeta Mellark of all people_ asking questions about me?

“We’re friends,” I confirmed, slowly shutting my textbook, sitting up a little straighter. I had no reason to be self-conscious around him, but all of a sudden I was. “Did you need something?”

“Um, I just…” He was so red it was almost comical now, crimson streaming from his cheeks to his collarbone. “Sorry, this is weird. I feel like I’m ambushing you.”

“A little, yeah.” I set my things on the carpeted floor next to me, clasped my fingers, and stared at him expectantly. “It might be less weird if you stopped acting so weird.”

He breathed a laugh, scratching the back of his neck. “Yeah, I guess so.” He drew in another breath and sighed it back out. “Mind if I sit?”

I gestured to the corner bookshelf across from me, and he lowered himself to the ground, sitting cross-legged and picking at some kicked-up fuzz on the carpet.

“What was it like after your dad passed away?”

“Hard.” I didn’t know which had me more taken aback, the directness of his question or how quickly I’d answered it.

He sort of half-laughed again, ducking his head. “Right. Seems kind of obvious.” He swallowed hard, stared at the ground for a few long moments, and spoke again. “How was your family? Were things… weird?”

“Of course.” I did my best not to sound indignant but empathetic. He didn’t look any more wounded than he had before, so I had to assume I’d succeeded. “I mean, everything changed. It’s not just ‘family minus dad equals new normal’ right off the bat, you know? Everyone reacts differently, every relationship is impacted differently.” I drew in a shaky breath, surprised by the sudden tightness in my chest, in my throat. “It changes… everything. _Everything_.”

He nodded slowly. “That makes me feel better.”

“Is it weird for you?” I asked softly, gently, prodding. I didn’t know why all of a sudden I was acting like his shoulder to cry on — certainly there were other shoulders, other girls who’d welcome the sweet, sensitive boy with wide open arms — but it was just like bumping into him at the funeral, this alien, intense need to protect. To care for.

He hesitated, then nodded again, even more slowly than the last one. Reluctant. “I mean, Bran and Rye both came back for the funeral, but it’s been, like… radio silence from them since.” He sighed, the breath coming out a little shaky. “And, uh —” he broke off in a laugh, something sharp and so strange coming from him, something that forced another twist in my gut “— Well, my mom’s never really known what to do with me. It’s harder in such an empty house.”

We were quiet for a moment, me watching and waiting, him pink-cheeked and stripping the carpet bare of its pills.

“I’m sorry,” he burst out, rushed, like he was about to be in trouble. “I’m dumping so much on you right now, and you didn’t sign up for that at all.”

I shrugged. “You have to dump it somewhere, right?”

He sighed, but this one wasn’t just shame or grief. There was a touch of relief hidden in there, I was sure. “Thank you.”

I shrugged again. It wasn’t ‘no problem’, but I felt like ‘you’re welcome’ would be too lofty, or maybe an invitation for this to be a regular thing, which I wasn’t sure I wanted. I mean, I could barely sort through my own feelings, let alone counsel him through his.

“I’m done now,” he said, brushing his hands on his pants and settling back against the bookshelf. “The floor is yours.”

I laughed a little, breathy and incredulous, and shot him a look. “I’m not much of a talker.”

“Oh. Well.” He paused, rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I guess not.” If I had any reputation in school it was for not having much of a reputation at all, for not doing much more than quietly coasting. I got good grades and hung out with Gale Hawthorne, rebel senior, and this was enough balance to grant me a fairly neutral public persona. “Should we just sit, then?”

I wanted to point out that’s what I had been doing before he showed up, and that my regular lunchtime routine was to sit _alone_ , and that I hadn’t invited him to join me anyway — but he was vulnerable, clearly, and all things considered he wasn’t being too intrusive. Maybe a little too familiar than I was completely comfortable with, but he was nice about it. Earnest. And I was sure if I asked him to leave me alone, he’d take it reasonably. Respectfully. So I figured until it became unbearable, I could let him share this space away from all the other noise.

“Sure, Peeta.”

As long as he stayed quiet, I could pretend it was the same kind of lunch as always, alone with my thoughts and my homework and nothing any more troubling than math problems to weigh my mind down. But somehow, through the whole lunch period and for the first time since day one of freshman year, I didn’t manage to get an ounce of work done.

There were so many things I noticed in the months after that first afternoon in the library with Peeta. I noticed that he arrived weary every morning, eyes weighed-down and mouth a thin, straight line. Even his hair seemed to droop a little more.

I noticed that Cato and Marvel and Clove and Glimmer, the group he’d buddied with from kindergarten through our second-last year of school, never made him laugh anymore. Extra surprising considering how much everyone else liked them — Marvel was the class clown, goofy enough that I couldn’t help but wonder why he was such a hot commodity, but that was the nature of being part of Cato’s group. Cato himself was your typical asshole jock, but he won the school all its shiniest trophies and his face was mostly symmetrical, and by this point in my high school career I’d learned you didn’t need much more than that. Clove was whip-smart, almost dangerously so — Gale joked that she held the others at ransom, and that was the only reason they were friends with her. He also joked that it could have been me sitting there instead of her, if I’d learned some decent social skills. But he wasn’t the one to catch Cato behind the bleachers with his hands up Clove’s shirt.

Then there was Glimmer.

She was stunning, one of those girls you knew would have a modelling contract before graduation day. Sure, she was kind of a bitch, but she had the looks to make up for it, as shallow as that was. She’d be snotty to you one minute, and in the next heartbeat she’d give you that perfect, winning smile and add another comment, softer this time, so you could both pretend it was an inside joke between the two of you. That you weren’t the punchline, but the audience. I hated her for it, for how beautiful she was and how much she knew she was beautiful and how she knew she could get away with just about anything because of it.

But at the same time I didn’t. I couldn’t. It’s hard to hate beautiful people.

After that day in the library, I often wondered why Peeta spent his time with people he seemed nothing like, with people that didn’t make him laugh, let alone smile. But even more than that I wondered why Glimmer wasn’t his girlfriend.

A lot of girls looked at him the way she did, with the hair-flips and too-loud laughs and swooning, melty, lash-batting eyes. And maybe he didn’t notice them, sure. But if Glimmer looked at you like that? I couldn’t imagine anyone missing that. He had to be either an idiot, or a total asshole. My instinct had been to elect the latter, but I didn’t feel so confident in that anymore.

Sometimes I wanted to ask him about her, the odd time he joined me in the library. He showed up without warning every few days. Not that he could give warning, or anything. My phone was paid out of pocket and strictly emergency use only, and I wouldn’t in a million years try to give him my number.

Then again, if I was texting — or worse, _calling_ — Peeta Mellark on my personal phone, that would be its own emergency.

Anyway, there was no chance I would ever ask him about Glimmer, no matter how curious I was. There were few things I could imagine worse than Peeta getting the idea I was remotely interested in him, let alone jealous. And there was nothing to be jealous of anyway. I was sure they’d hook up at some grad party, maybe forget about each other in their freshman years at university, then find each other again somewhere along the line and sell their love story as a high school sweetheart tall-tale. They’d have a couple of Aryan-looking kids who would probably turn out to be beautiful assholes, and the social structure of the town would continue.

And hopefully me and my family would be long gone by then.

“What are your plans this summer?” he asked me, flipping through a textbook quickly. Too quickly to convince me he was actually reading anything, let alone retaining it.

It was the last week of classes proper, all periods devoted to cramming, and it was more crucial than ever to be spending my lunch-hour in the library, studying in silence and solitude. Naturally, Peeta had showed up every day that week.

“Well, I won’t be making it to the family beach house,” I said dryly, earning a quiet scoff from him.

“I didn’t mean anything like that,” he said with a roll of his eyes, though his cheeks were growing pink. I was used to the near-constant blushing, what with how often I was catching him off-guard, challenging him like none of the other girls at school would dare to. But eye-rolling? When had we reached that level of familiarity? “It’s a genuine question.”

“Okay.” I sat up a little straighter, bracing myself for the impending moment of honesty. This was another one I couldn’t pinpoint, one more rung of the friendliness ladder I wasn’t sure when we’d surpassed. “I’m gonna be a counsellor for ten weeks at a camp for _troubled youth_.”

“Exciting,” he said, as if this was some scandalous revelation. As if he wasn’t going to spend his summer partying with the rest of our grade, partaking in scandals of his own. “That’s Camp Panem, isn’t it?”

I’d been about to tell him off, or at least give him a hearty glare, but he caught me off guard with that one. “How do you know about it?”

“I’ve heard other people mention it. A few guys from the football team.” He shrugged. “It probably would have slipped my mind completely, but my counsellor gave me a pamphlet when I got back to school.”

I clenched my teeth to keep my jaw from dropping. “Seriously?” Preppy little rich boy, Peeta, spending a summer at Camp Panem just because he lost his dad? Part of me felt guilty immediately for the thought, for the sudden shock of resentment I felt towards him — resentment that felt so alien after all the lunches we’d spent together. But the rest of me just resented him even more for it. What a luxury it would be to have just the one loss in a lifetime of affluence.

“Seriously. It was kind of ridiculous, really. I feel like if I showed up there would be riots or something.”

His self-awareness lowered my hackles a little, and I managed to smile despite myself. At least he knew better than to stick his nose in a place he so clearly didn’t belong. “I mean, we don’t outright _ban_ rich people. We just frown upon them pretty universally.”

“Well, their standards can’t be too high if they’re trusting you to wrangle a bunch of delinquents for a summer.”

I threw my eraser at him, refusing to dignify this with a proper answer, but he dodged easily.

“Good aim, but you’re no match for my reflexes.” He stuck his hands out like he was about to perform an elaborate karate demonstration.

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, crumpling up my sandwich wrapper. “Keep running your mouth and you’ll see how long those reflexes protect you.”

He grinned, his cheeks dashed with pink once more, and stuck his nose back in his book with no further shots fired.

Of all the things I noticed in those last weeks of school, the strangest one was that the days he hid in the library with me were the only time I saw him really smile. It would be strange, I realized then, to go ten weeks without seeing that smile.

It was for the best though, I’d decided. A summer completely removed from each other was exactly what I needed. I would erase any semblance of him from my school routine, detach myself from our daily hour of pretend-friendship. I’d have a good two months and change to grow cool again, removed. He’d have the same amount of time to process his grief, pull himself together, and not need me to vent to anymore.

This _was_ for the best. I was sure of it. And once I got to camp I could forget about Mom and Prim a little, know they would take care of each other. It was my first year as a counsellor, and my last year at camp with Gale before he left for college. It was a beautiful summer that stretched before me, and I knew it would be easy to forget all about Peeta, to not wonder at all how he was doing or where he was or who might be there with him.

I was downright _elated_ when I swung Gale’s passenger door open, an uncharacteristic spring in my step as I tugged my duffel bag out of the trunk and hoisted it over my shoulder. I was grinning and he was grinning too, and when the camp bus rolled in with a cloud of dust to herald it in, I knew the summer was only going to get better.

I was beaming as the passengers unloaded, all the campers I’d grown up with who’d elected to be counsellors for the summer — Annie and Thom and Thresh and Delly — and the summer officially began.

But every ounce of excitement crumbled when the bus rolled away, when the dust fell back to the ground and left Peeta standing there in bright-white tennis shoes with a duffel bag of his own.

“What are you doing here?”

He stares at me, as blank and dumbfounded as I probably look, and I can’t fathom how he still has that sack of flour slung over his shoulder because it looks like it probably weighs a hundred pounds, and how did I ever manage to forget the way it felt looking into his eyes, like he was about to drown you with all the sweetness in the world? How do his eyes still look like that?

And here it comes, the defensiveness crawling in, my hackles raising despite the confusion.

“I’m, uh —” he manages to get out, before Johanna abruptly reminds me that she’s been right on my heels the whole time.

“I’m Johanna!” she chirps with a level of excitement I immediately deem untrustworthy, sticking her hand out to shake. “It’s Peeta, right?”

“Right,” he says, giving her hand gentle squeeze, but he only shoots her a quick glance before he’s back to me.

It’s like we’re replaying that entire summer between us in our heads, sharing it in our locked gazes, the strange sadness and anger and even stranger hurt. And I feel it then, all the discomfort and mess — and, yes, _hurt_ — and I know I need to get out of there. Now.

“I’m giving Johanna a tour,” I say so fast it’s a miracle I got the words out in one take, and I grab her by the wrist and drag her out of there, trying not to remember the last time I gave an unexpected guest the tour of Camp Panem.

“Okay, we’re going to talk about _that_ ,” Johanna says as soon as we’re out of earshot.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

She laughs, stops short so suddenly that I stumble backwards, nearly tripping over my own feet. “Yeah, your inability to _actually_ _talk_ in there suggests otherwise.”

“Johanna, please.” I let go of her, crossing my arms tightly over my chest, refusing to look her in the eye.

She lets out a big sigh, knowing me well enough by now to know that her mischief isn’t any fun when I’m more mopey than irritable. “Fine. Show me your beloved camp.” She links her arm through mine and throws a pointed look over her shoulder, back towards the mess hall. “But we will be discussing _that_.”

“Nope. I’ll ignore you all summer if I have to.”

She laughs again, but this time in such an all-knowing, condescending way that I want to hit her. “Oh, Katniss,” she says, patting my arm, “there are some things that can’t be ignored. No matter how hard you try.”


	3. jumping fences and cutting lines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap it's been a minute! Life is wild, but fic is peace. Enjoy <3

“Oh! You must be Peeta!”

I wanted answers, and I wanted them right then and there, but Effie was an unmovable force, regardless of how she teetered in her wedged sandals.

“You know, it’s so refreshing to see a new face around here,” she gushed, tucking her clipboard under one arm so she could shake Peeta’s free hand. “I do believe all the other counsellors have spent at least one summer as a camper.”

“I thought that was a requirement,” I said slowly, careful to keep all the bitterness out of my voice and instead funnel it into the death stare I had trained on Peeta. A touch of dread had crawled into his eyes now, an extra tinge of crimson flooding his cheeks.

Well, it certainly recommends you for the role,” Effie said with some degree of pride, patting my shoulder like I was the poster child for all troubled-campers-turned-counsellor. “But everyone is welcome at Camp Panem!”

I wondered if Peeta read that in his pamphlet. Maybe that’s what made him think it was okay to show up.

“Now, normally I would give you a tour of the grounds myself, but there’s just so much to attend to before orientation.” She looked truly remorseful, eyeing Peeta once more. Gale and I both had gotten a thorough nagging on our individual responsibilities to pass down our eyes or cheekbones to the next generation — I was sure if she got some alone time with Peeta she’d give him the same treatment.

Lucky him to dodge it, I supposed.

“Now, Gale, would you mind helping the ladies in the kitchen?” I glared at Gale, a proper _don’t you dare leave me to deal with this_ look that he conveniently dodged, squinting up at the sun and scratching his neck. Neither he nor Effie were fazed. “Our delivery just arrived and I won’t have anyone straining anything—certainly not before camp has properly started.” She pulled out her clipboard again, added a few blue-ink ticks to her current focus list. “Thresh, too, please? And Thom, if you will…”

But the rest of them were already gone, wise enough to know that sticking around too long would have them trapped in the web of Effie’s endless to-do lists. That, or they’d picked up on how badly I wanted to throttle Peeta and didn’t feel like accessorizing the inevitable murder. And Gale, the last person left who could have helped me get through it, was already loping off to the mess hall, Thresh following in his wake. He’d never acquired a taste for Effie’s antics, and though I couldn’t blame him for the quick escape I still resented him for it.

Not as much as I resented Peeta, though.

“Well then.” Effie cleared her throat, squared her shoulders, stuck her chin high. “Katniss, dear, would you mind? It’s essential that we have our newest team member acquainted with the facilities.”

“Oh, that’s—” Peeta began, at the same moment I choked out a panicked, “Actually—”

“Wonderful!” She said, and if her smile wasn’t so bright I’d think she was being intentionally cruel. “Go on, you two.” And she marched away to whatever mission she’d recruited herself for, leaving me to my torture.

I turned on Peeta then, glaring at him like I never had before, arms crossed and eyes narrowed while I gave him a quick once-over. Except for his frazzled expression, everything about him was put-together. Polo shirt, khaki shorts, sparkling-new tennis shoes. Like he’d been drop-kicked from the country club. I hated him. Every less-than-resentful thought I’d ever had about him I silently took back. I hated, hated, hated, _hated_ him. More than I could even process in the moment, certainly more than I could verbalize. So I turned on my heel and stalked away, hoping he’d call the chauffeur to drive him home instead of taking a single step further onto my turf.

I wasn’t so lucky.

“Cabins are here,” I told him stonily, envying all the muffled, giddy chatter drifting out. Why was _I_ the one stuck with him? At the funeral, in the library, through every year of grade school, and now at Camp Panem, of all places. _Why was it always me?_ “Two counsellors to a cabin. Check the list for your cabin and partner.”

He hesitated on his way to the sheet hung on Cabin One’s door, but seemed to think better of it. I figured if I had to talk to him, the easiest way would be in simple sentences, delivered more like a series of orders than any kind of congeniality. Maybe he was finally starting to get the hint.

“Cabin Three. I’m paired with Gale.”

There was a twinge of discomfort in my gut, entirely different from the simmering rage holding strong there. I didn’t like the idea of the two of them spending any amount of time together. I knew how close I’d gotten with Madge just sharing a bunk as a camper, and I could see the hell unfold before me now—Gale and Peeta, the best of pals, stomping on every moment of this last summer before my best friend left for college.

I kept my face as blank as possible when he turned around, muttering only, “Cool.” 

It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm with a breeze coming off the lake, and this is what I tried to focus on while I walked the camp’s perimeter with Peeta on my heels. That the day was perfect, and not that it had been ruined by his presence. I ignored him to the best of my capacity, explaining as little as possible.

“Quad,” I deadpanned, tossing a hand at the rusted basketball nets that hung over the stretch of asphalt. Two old wood buildings, each no bigger than a football field, kept it wedged in place. “Office, supply closet, infirmary,” I said for the smaller of the two, and for the other, “Mess hall, kitchen, canteen.”

I maintained this level of distance and discomfort throughout the tour, silent unless I was naming a structure in the visible distance, and then moving off in another direction before he had a chance to ask any questions.

Arts wing, nature kiosk, sports field, amphitheatre, bonfire. We reached the grand finale, and watching the water ripple over Lake Panem I felt myself start to breathe again. Sure, I still had to figure out how I was going to survive a whole summer ignoring Peeta, but at least this torture tour was coming to a close.

“Katniss.”

I don’t know if I’d gotten used to him keeping his mouth shut or if I just hadn’t heard his voice so sharp before, but the sound of it stopped me in my tracks. I jerked, turned to look at him, stuck somewhere between incredulous and infuriated.

His expression faltered for a second, but he seemed to steel himself, crossing his arms with something like defiance. “Are you gonna tell me what I did to make you so mad at me, or are you just going to keep punishing me for it?”

Whatever calm I’d managed to acquire was gone in an instant, a burst of anger firing up in my gut. “This is _my_ camp,” I snapped, jabbing a thumb into my burning chest, my heartbeat wild. “I don’t know what makes you think you can just waltz in here like you give a shit, but this place is important to me. This _summer_ is important to me.”

His brow furrowed, eyes troubled. Confused. “I didn’t mean—”

“My best friend leaves town at the end of the summer,” I said. “And instead of spending these last few months with him before everything changes, him and I are gonna have to take turns babysitting _you_ , Peeta.” Peeta, who could be anywhere else. Who could be on a real beach in a real lakeside cottage, not in an underfunded cabin half-occupied by termites. I narrowed my eyes at him, my heart pumping angry heat through my limbs. “You don’t belong here.”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He blinked a few times, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down with a hard swallow, and he said, finally, “I’m sorry I ruined your summer.” He didn’t look angry, or even confused anymore. Just embarrassed, and maybe a little disappointed. “I’ll do my best to stay out of your way.”

He turned then, and started down the path back to the cabins, and I was even more pissed at him then. For not letting me have the final word, for walking away when it was supposed to be my job, for taking the verbal beating like a kicked puppy. Like he deserved it.

He did deserve it, though. Didn’t he?

“I do _not_ deserve this.”

We’ve barely reached the nature activities outpost, only twenty minutes into the a tour that looks to be forty based on our pace, and already Johanna’s complaints have come trickling in. About the bugs, the heat, the sun. _Everything_.

“I told you to bring sunscreen,” I say, watching her stagger towards the trees with outstretched, pleading arms. She pauses at my accusatory tone, turns just enough to pin me with a loathsome look.

“And I told you to stop buying the kind I’m allergic to, but here we are.”

“Not my responsibility.” I lean against the padlocked shed full of old snowshoes, ropes, first aid kits. “And anyway, since when are you unable to handle the great outdoors, ranger?”

She flops into the the grass, shaded by a thick-branched elm, and shoots me another look of disgust. “Since the only other people in the ‘great outdoors’—” her fingers quirk up in bitter air quotes “—here are you and Campground Barbie. I never should have let you drag me along.”

I blink at her, wondering not for the first time exactly what world of delusion she’s built for herself. “You know, it’s hard to feel bad for you when you make me want to hit you.”

She smiles cheekily up at me and lets her eyes drift shut, and she just looks so peaceful laying there in the grass that I give up on our mission and drop to the ground next to her. I stretch my legs out in the wild grass, soft and swaying in the midday breeze.

“Are you okay?” I ask, nudging her ankle with my toe. “No heat stroke? Skin cancer?” I even offer her my water bottle for good measure.

“I guess,” she says with a gusty sigh, taking my bottle and downing a few gulps before handing it back. “I’d definitely feel better if you dished about this whole Peeta situation, though.”

“Oh my _god_ , Johanna.” I resist the urge to yell, sitting up quick and dragging my hands down my face. “I’m… processing, okay? I was not prepared for this.”

“Clearly.” She blocks my hand when I move to flick her forehead, and once more I wonder how she goes from so feeble to so nimble so goddamn quickly. In a moment she’s rolled onto her stomach and then sprung back up to her feet, and suddenly I’m the one so weary that all I can do is glare up at her from the grass. She smiles and offers her hand. “Come on.”

I grimace but let her haul me back to my feet, give my hand a little squeeze, link her arm through mine.

“So just to be clear, you’re completely hung up him, right?”

“Johanna!”

She ignores me entirely, squinting off in the distance like she’s deep in thought. “I mean, I heard all the stories of your magical camp summer with this mysterious Peeta boy, but it wasn’t until I actually _saw_ him that it hit me. Like, really hit me.”

“What—”

“I mean, for starters—despite being this cool woodsy loner girl—you lost your v-card to the most saltine-cracker, all-American college quarterback I have ever seen.”

I stop short for a second, cheeks burning, but she yanks me along with her just a moment later. “Hey—”

“And every guy I’ve ever seen you with has been blonde or blue-eyed or broad-shouldered or, like, mysteriously bread-scented.”

“Okay—”

“I,” she says sharply, turning on me to point a finger in my face, “am not finished.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

But she ignores me, as she always does when she’s on a mission. “You have a type, Katniss. That type is one Peeta Mellark.” She gives me another fiery warning look before I try to get a word in. “And don’t you dare pretend you’re fine screwing cheap imitations for the rest of your life.”

I draw in a slow, deep breath, waiting for the next chapter of the monologue. In the meantime I tuck some flyaways behind my ear, watch the grass waver beneath the breeze, and when a few moments pass without any further comment, I say the only thing that comes to mind. “Easton was nice.”

“You mean _Yeaston_?” Johanna scoffs. “He smelled like a sourdough buffet.”

“You know what?” I throw my hands up, let out an incredulous little laugh, take a few steps forward and away from her. “This doesn’t matter. What _does_ matter is that this camp is my job for the summer, and I intend to be professional. No weird relationship drama or high school fantasies for me, okay?”

“…So you admit he’s your high school fantasy.”

“I swear to god, Jo—” I begin, but before I can give her a proper piece of my mind I hear screaming. Bone-chilling, blood-freezing screeches.

I whip around to see two figures in the distance, jumping and waving their arms high in the air until they’re sure I’ve seen them, and then they start sprinting towards us.

“ _Katniss_!”

The shriek is ear-splitting, gleeful and girlish, but it doesn’t knock the air from my lungs quite like when Madge flings herself at me, nearly landing me back on the ground.

“Jesus, Madge,” I gasp, sucking in the air she’s just snatched from my lungs, when Annie descends upon us. Her assault is gentler, but one pair of arms squeezing the life out of me is already enough, and with two of them I’m completely overwhelmed. “Okay, okay, get off of me!” I snap, but somehow I’m laughing when I take a step back and dust my pants off.

“Nice to see you, Madge,” Johanna says with a wink and a grin, while Madge’s smile flickers, the colour draining from her cheeks. “And you must be Annie! I’m Johanna.”

“Nice to meet you, Johanna,” she says, tucking a lock of tawny-brown hair behind her ear and sticking her hand out for a shake.

“So? How’s camp so far?” Madge asks, giving my arm a little squeeze and offering a tentative smile. She was the most shocked to hear of my return to camp, even more than Gale was when I first told him.

“Same old, I guess.” I throw a hand out, gesturing to the trees, the grass, the lake in the distance, the cabins even further off. “Nothing much really changes around here, does it?”

“Peeta’s here.”

Everyone goes silent, so quiet we can hear the wind rustling the trees, and we all stare at Johanna. She stares right back, evenly as ever, and one by one they all turn to look at me.

It takes me a second to notice this, and then to realize that they’re still staring, and immediately my cheeks flare with heat. “What?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Madge asks, voice soft and eyes wide.

“Because I just found out myself,” I fire back, far too shrill for my liking. I take a few deep breaths and continue, slowly this time. “It’s not a big deal anyway. He’s here to work, just like the rest of us, right?” Silence. Glances exchanged down the line. “ _Right_?”

“Of course,” Annie says, giving my hand a little pat. But she won’t meet my eyes anymore and Madge’s face is doubtful and Johanna’s is pure, devious glee. I realize then that there is nothing I can do to keep her reigned in, no way possible to prevent her from her regular antics. So I rapid-cycle, already having been through my fair share of denial and anger, and leap ahead to acceptance. Better to rip off the bandaid now.

“And speaking of _working_ , I have some director duties to attend to,” I continue evenly, as if none of this has fazed me, as if none of it ever will. “It’s officially your turn to babysit Jo.” I extend a hand in her direction, pretending I don’t notice the panicked look on Madge’s face. “Best of luck to you both. Don’t tell her anything I wouldn’t want her to know.”

“What wouldn’t you want me to know?” Johanna says sharply, her eyes bright with the promise of yet-unveiled secrets, but I’m already walking away, from the gossip and the questions and the summer I thought I was going to have with my best friends at my side, because nothing is going to be the way I thought it would be.

It’s crazy how one person can so easily change _everything_.

By the time I make it back to the administrative building I’m sweating like mad. Because the sun is out and there are no clouds in the sky and you can barely feel the breeze this far from the water, and not because the mess hall is only a few feet away and certainly not because if I listen close enough I can hear a trio of voices floating out of the kitchen, one of them I was absolutely sure I’d never hear again.

“Effie?” I call, and want to smack myself for how unsteady my voice sounds. Like I’m pacing the halls in a summer slasher film, andnot just trying to find my boss.

I hear some rustling in the office and then Effie pokes her head out the door, already beaming at me. Sometimes I wonder if she ever turns the smile off. “What can I do for you, dear?”

“Sorry, I’m just trying to get my bearings a bit,” I say quickly, tucking some hair behind my ear. I don’t know why I apologize so much around Effie, only that I always feel the need to. “I’m taking a cabin this year, right?”

“Oh! Yes, of course,” she tucks a strawberry-blonde curl behind her ear, shaking her head a little. “Silly me, I completely forgot you’d need a look around the space.”

She ducks back into her office for a moment, and then emerges fully, her clipboard still attached to her hand like a Barbie accessory, and a lanyard hanging from her neck with the hearty jangling of about a thousand keys.

“Now, these cabins don’t get much use during our off-season, and I just haven’t had the time yet to check up on them, so they might feel a little more…” she pauses, purses her lips, trying to find the least offensive word in her arsenal, “… _rustic_ than usual.”

“Rustic?”

“Oh, you know,” she says hurriedly, sifting through her keys. “Sticking hinges, old pipes, that sort of thing. Nothing unmanageable.” She smiles reassuringly. “Just to be safe, run the water for a few minutes before you shower. And if you ever need it, I’m sure there’s some oil or grease or something in the supply closet.”

“Right.”

She unhooks a key from her clip, holds it out, and I take it obediently. “Now, we keep three keys to be safe. One for you, one for me, and one locked in the key box in the office.” She fixes me with a stern look, as if this is the most crucial detail I will ever learn, and suddenly I miss the ever-present grin. “Please do not use the spare key.”

“Sure thing.” I smile at her, a little hesitant, a little confused, and her own megawatt grin returns just in time for her to push the door open.

Sticking hinges, indeed. There’s a moment of silence where we expected the door to swing open, and after some hesitation Effie, as daintily as one can, throws her shoulder at it. It screeches for the entirety of its inward trajectory, revealing wall-to-floor dark wood panelling and a few windows so the dust motes have sunlight to dance in. Against one wall sits a modest cot, and the other cradles a wash basin and shower. It reminds me of the dorm bathrooms at Capitol U, albeit aged a few decades. But it beats shared bathrooms, right?

“It does have its own charm,” Effie says, as if trying to convince herself more than me. I follow her gaze to what looks like a thinning patch in the roof, and follow again to a patch of floor directly beneath it where one of the wood panels seems to sag. “Quaint.”

It’s this moment when it hits me. How odd this is, how out of place I am, how entirely out of my depth. How stupid I was to ever hear Haymitch out, let alone take him up on the proposition.

“I have no idea why I’m here, Effie.”

We turn to each other at the same time, and though I’m sure I look like a deer in headlights her expression is calm, gentle, as delicate as the way her hand settles on my shoulder.

“Well, what about your first summer here? What were you looking for then?”

I draw in a breath, deep and slow, and I’m surprised by the sudden tightness in my throat. “I guess… I don’t know. An escape, maybe.” I swallow hard, blinding at the wood slat ceiling to stop any tears in their tracks. “From all the quiet at home. From having to act like my dad never even existed.”

“And?” she prompts, giving my shoulder a little squeeze. “What did you find?”

“A place I didn’t have to act.” I let out a breathe, only then realizing I’d been holding it in. “Somewhere that felt like home.”

“Well. Maybe you were just feeling homesick.” She smiles at me, tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, pats my cheek, and it’s strange to me how tender she can be when she’s so scattered the rest of the time. Even stranger is how comforting it is.

She straightens then, holds her chin high, settles a hand on her hip. “Now don’t forget, dear, bonfire starts at six. It’s very important that you’re there to kick things off.”

“Of course, Effie.” I do another quick sweep of the cabin, and already it’s beginning to grow on me. “Thank you.”

She leaves me with a peppy wave, flutters back to the office building, and I do the only thing I know to do when I’m feeling frazzled.

The shower water does run brown for the first minute or so, but not as brown as I was expecting. The temperature is fair — not as hot as I’d like it, but reasonable for camp plumbing — and it drains easily, and after a few more minutes of careful vigilance, I’m able to relax and enjoy the wet and warmth.

With a towel wrapped around me and my hair in a damp braid at my back, I start unpacking my things slowly, carefully. Clearly Johanna had gone through my things before we left, judging by the pair of shorts that fit me in a way not at all appropriate for a children’s camp, and a handful of lacy pieces I’d stuffed so deep into my underwear drawers I’d forgotten I ever had them.

God, I could kill her. If I intended to, the conditions were perfect—sun slowly sinking to brush the mountaintops in the distance and limiting visibility, chorus of cicada- and cricket-chirps masking the other sounds of the night. But not the sounds of people—of a bunch of twenty-somethings with flip-flops and six-packs and years’ worth of gossip to catch up on, all making their way to the already-crackling fire.

I slip out of my cabin in gym shorts and a long-sleeved shirt a size or two too big for me, as comfortable as I can get before having to address a crowd. A crowd of people I’ve known for years, but a crowd nonetheless.

The chatter grows from a hum to a buzz to a din, but as soon as I’m close enough to make out the individual words it all fizzles out, everyone at attention for me. I smile wanly, already hyperaware of the sound of my heartbeat and my too-warm palms. I take the seat that used to be Haymitch’s, clasp my hands together, and in that moment I know I'm as ready as I'll ever be.

“Well.” I pause, my heart thumping, and scan the circle of mostly-familiar faces sitting around the fire with me. Johanna, Madge, Annie. Finnick, Thresh, Thom. And across from me, blue eyes lit up in the flickering firelight, Peeta. I draw in a slow breath, heart thumping heavy in my chest, and it’s impossible to tear my eyes from his when I say the words that kicked off all the best and worst of my summers. “Welcome to Camp Panem.”


End file.
